Thursday, October 15, 2009

Israeli Arab MK Proposes Nobel Peace Prize for Goldstone

Fifth Columnist Israeli Arab MK Talab El-Sana announced that he intends to approach the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo and request that Richard Goldstone receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his report ostracizing the IDF and Israel.

Speaking to the Walla! News site, El-Sana explained: "While Obama is just talk, Goldstone acts, and revealed the true face of Israel. He is worthy of the prize more than anyone else for his efforts to bring Israeli war criminals to justice."

• It must have been an unenviable challenge for the Israel Foreign Ministry to endeavor to try to discredit the report of the eminent South African Jurist, Judge Goldstone, who has an impeccable record in the field of human and civil rights, both at home and abroad. The first insuperable problem was that he is not only a recognized authority on international human rights legislation and convention, but he is Jewish! So the standard allegation of anti-Semitism, was impossible. They could not attack his professional record, which was impeccable. So what action could be taken in damage limitation? • The matter has suddenly become urgent. If the world fully accepts the report, then Israel is branded a human rights violator and a perpetrator of war crime. The international community has been shocked at the allegations of gratuitous killing of hundreds of innocent children and over a hundred women in three weeks of unchecked violence, together with the destruction of Gaza's infrastructure including 'houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings'. • The Report alleges 'an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population.' That, the Report states, 'could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been commited.' • The Israeli Government is in deep trouble as the allegations become more widely known, because there are few who now believe its denials and fewer still, its continuing propaganda. And there is a palpable sense of shock as the evidence unfolds as to what transpired in those three weeks of state-sponsored killing and destruction, under the pretext of self-defense. colindale london

Anon, not sure who's side you're on here. But it's all about context and perspective. When the rest of world is held to the same standard as Israel then maybe we can begin to have a conversation. However, while wanton killing and violence is pepetrated against civilians the world over and the UN utters not a peep. Then they have no moral standing whatsoever to say a word to us.

Forget the terror Regimes of Iran, Sudan, Egypt, North Korea, China, etc. for a moment. Let's just look at the US invasion of Iran and Afghanastan. Any idea how many civilians have been killed? Is there a daily tally in every paper around the world? If you do a little digging you can piece together that's at LEAST 10,000 in each country, probably orders of magnitude higher. While I support both of those operations neither poses an existential threat to the US.

This is all w/o mentioning the extreme care Israel took to avoid civilian casualties. If Israel acted as does every other county in the world there would be 1000's of dead civilians.

And even if in some bizarre alternate universe one says that it was OK for the UN to even undertake this one-sided specious investigation the Chief Rabbi of South Africa decimates the Goldstone farce on its merits!

Dear Mr Lipkin - you are clearly comfortable with the thought of Israeli soldiers deliberately killing unarmed women and children - hundreds of them, in cold blood. Watching them scream, watching them die. You have never killed anyone yourself, Mr Lipkin, have you? But you like to think of yourself as a communicator. A disseminator of great ideas. An upholder of the Jewish religion. You are none of these things. It is difficult to determine what you are other than someone of little intellect who loves to see his words in print.

Mr. Anon, if your goal is to understand people and their thinking, well don't give up your day job. But let me help you a little.

I'm deeply pained by the loss of life, especially innocent life, and especially children. I make sure to read and view the media of the "other side" just so I don't become decencitized to their suffering.

War is horrible and thankfully I haven't (yet) had to deal with it first hand. Among some of my peers I'm considered somewhat of a liberal. I listen to the Palestinian narrative, I accept their suffering, I believe that they are capable someday of creating a civilized society. I personally believe that once the Palestinians are ready to act like "Canadians" everything and anything will be possible.

So no, I am not "comfortable" with the killing of innocents. However, I am grounded enough to realize that is often the consequence of what nations must do to protect their people. And, of course, it goes without saying that, much, if not all of the loss of innocent life here was an INTENDED consequence of their leaders' actions. That doesn't make the loss of life any less real, but does provide critical perspective. It's the same perspective that allowed the allies to execute WWI and WWII. With much less care for innocent life, I might add.

I yearn for the day when a Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson arises among the Palestinians who can lead them in a direction of peace and prosperity, who can teach them to build instead of destroy.

But this issue is not really about Israel's care or lack thereof in prosecuting the Gaza action. Israelis, Jews, care about life. We've proven that. It's really about fairness. The world, every single nation, must either judge all nations by the standard it's trying to hold Israel to or allow Israel to operate on the same standards they currently use. (Of course I must repeat that if we really had, the death toll in Gaza would have been an order of magnitude higher.)

Mr. Anonymous: As an IDF soldier in the reserves, I'm offended by your accusations.

"Deliberately killing innocent women and children...watching them scream and die".

Not only are these accusations untrue, but your one sided, myopic view of the conflict is offensive.

Tell me, have you ever witnessed a Palestinian terror attack? These terror attacks are deliberate, calculated and intentional. The Palestinians don't deny their goal -- they bask in it. At these attacks, innocent men, women and children indeed scream in pain. I've seen it, been there, and helped the wounded as an emergency medical volunteer. Those images you never forget. The smell always lingers in your memory. The ringing of the sirens is always a memory that can pop back up.

However, the IDF never intentionally targets innocents, let alone innocent women and children. Such an action not only never happens, but if the IDF accidentally injures Palestinians, they get the best medical treatment possible.

Palestinians terrorists not only do all they can to kill and maim innocents, but often try to target the emergency first aid responders as well.

Sederot and Israel's Southern communities have been under constant attack for the past 7 years -- and denying Israel the right to defend its citizens is the real basis of your tirade.

The world does not want Israel to defend itself.

While the IDF bends over backwards to not injure civilians, the Palestinians do everything they can to maximize civilian targets in Israel, and maximize their OWN CIVILIAN population's exposure, by placing military targets among schools, hospital and mosques.